Movie Review: Chicago

Chicago (2002)

Directed by Rob Marshall 

Written by Bill Condon 

Starring Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, Taye Diggs

Release Date December 27th, 2002 

Published December 26th, 2002 

The play Chicago dates back to 1924, a non musical play inspired by a pair of real life murder cases in which woman were accused of murdering their lovers. It was adapted for the screen two times, including a version called Roxie Hart starring Ginger Rogers. It wasn't until 1974 that Chicago the play became Chicago the musical. Bob Fosse and partner Fred Ebb took the story and added sensational song and dance, and Fosse's trademark raunchiness, to make a play that while popular, it wasn't initially the massive hit many had expected. 

In 1996 a revival of Fosse's Chicago, the musical was brought back to Broadway, but slightly tweaked. With a little less raunch and a slightly less cynical tone, the all new Chicago the musical was now a smash hit. The revival went on to earn 9 Tony Award nominations and win 7 Tony Awards over. Now, 6 years later, it is the revival version of Chicago that comes to the silver screen and unfortunately, they may have done better with Fosse's version.

Set in 1924, Chicago centers on a pair of scandalous murders that splash across the front pages of Chicago's trashy newspapers. One case is that of a chorus girl named Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta Jones), who shows up at a jazz club for a performance a little late and without her dance partner. Velma and her sister Veronica were becoming famous for their double act, but on this night, it is just Velma on stage performing their signature routine to the tune of All That Jazz. We quickly realize as the police arrive that Velma has murdered her sister after finding her in bed with her husband.

In the audience on that night as Velma was taken away by the cops, is a starry eyed, dim bulb blonde named Roxie Hart (Renee Zellwegger). At the club with a man who is not her husband, Roxie is expecting her boyfriend will speak to the manager about putting her onstage to perform. Cut to a month later Velma is in jail and Roxie is still waiting for her man to make her a star. However, when he admits he made up the story just to sleep with her, Roxie shoots and kills him.

When Roxie's husband Amos (John C. Reilly) comes home from work she convinces him the man was a burglar and tries to get Amos to take the fall. However after Amos finds out that the burglar is a guy he knows he changes his tune and Roxie is off to murderesses’ row where she will share a cellblock with the celebrated murderers of the day, husband killers whose brief glimpses of fame have dimmed as the gallows loomed over them. Among those celebrated killers is none other than Velma Kelly. 

Though Roxie tries to insinuate herself into Velma's world behind bars, the two are not friends. Velma only sees Roxie as someone trying to take her spotlight. Roxie meanwhile, after being rejected by Velma manages to convince her idiot husband to hire Velma's high profile lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere). With this move by Roxie, it becomes a war between Velma and Roxie to see who can make bigger headlines and hold the attention of their glory hound lawyer the longest. Billy Flynn's only interested in whichever client is on the front page that day. 

Director Rob Marshall, a veteran of the stage making his film debut, crafts a quickly paced and exuberant film that combines the best of old time Hollywood glamour with modern panache and star power. Though unlikely choices for the leading roles, Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones's star quality helps to nail their temptress roles with surprisingly strong singing and dancing, aided no doubt by Marshall's quick cut style.

The biggest surprise in Chicago however, is Richard Gere. Forget surprise, Gere is a revelation. Though his singing could use some work, Gere's vibrant enthusiasm and energy carries you past any reservations you may have about his singing. In his best moments, Gere blows everyone else off the screen. In particular, a courtroom tap-dance near the end of the film is truly spectacular and in a film with a number of standout numbers, Gere manages to craft best performance of the film.

I have a few issues with this Broadway adaptation however, issues that keep me from fully embracing the film as a truly great movie. The first issue is the staging of the musical performance. All of the musical numbers are bound to Broadway style proscenium stages. Director Rob Marshall binds the movie to the stage and fails to take advantage of the dynamic film medium for staging. Marshall seems to think he is tied to the Broadway stage interpretation of each song.

Then there is the film’s tone, which wants to be bawdy comedy but can't go as far as it would like in fear of offending the family audiences. Adhering closely to the toned down revival version of Chicago, the film contains little of Fosse's raunchiness that marked his 1974 version. What Fosse's version did was frame the sensationalistic stories with bawdy comedy and a masterful turn of innuendo. There is little of that fun in this Chicago, save for Queen Latifah's "What Mama Wants.” The comedy in Chicago never finds a rhythm to match the music.

What made Fosse's version interesting, if not great, was its ability to drag the audience into the gutter with its characters. The raunchiness and the fearlessness of the characters was transgressive and exciting. With this toned down version of Chicago, you don't get the thrill that Fosse intended. Instead it's like watching the OJ Simpson trial, you can't help but admire the sheer audacity of Johnny Cochran, but you still hate OJ and you likely weren't rooting for him. 

In Chicago you can't help but admire Gere's Billy Quinn for his Razz Ma Tazz three ring circus, but Zellwegger's Roxie Hart is still a terrible person. This fact about Roxie is confirmed by the film’s only truly sympathetic character, John C. Reilly's Amos Hart. Sympathetic or just pathetic, Amos' big number "Mr. Cellophane" is the films one moment of emotional involvement. The rest of Chicago lingers somewhere in an uncanny valley of toned down dark humor, bloody murder crossed with big brassy musical numbers, all pitched to reach the back of the theater. It's a sloppy tone the film never wrestles into cohesion. 

Comparing Chicago to a similar but far superior movie such as Moulin Rouge would be unfair. Baz Luhrmann is a veteran filmmaker who is aware of all the tools available to him in the film medium. In Moulin Rouge, Luhrmann was working from material of his own creation in a realm he's comfortable creating in. Rob Marshall is still learning about the difference between directing a film and directing for the stage and I believe he has a bright future in Hollywood. Chicago is a good start, a flawed but brave attempt at a big screen musical that demonstrates Marshall's promise as a director while coming up short on the promise of the movie itself. 

Movie Review: X-Men The Last Stand

X-Men The Last Stand (2006) 

Directed by Brett Ratner 

Written by Simon Kinberg, Zak Penn 

Starring Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Kelsey Grammer, Elliot Page, Shawn Ashmore

Release Date May 26th, 2006

Published May 25th, 2006 

Director Brett Ratner is a hack. That is the reputation he has earned over a career of nine features including two Rush Hour films (and soon a third), Red Dragon, The Family Man and After The Sunset. Each of these are examples of the basic mainstream formula pictures that few would call innovative or relevant. Ratner is a mainstream showman who works only from studio approved genre templates and thus, the label of hack, is appropriate. 

Ratner's style is safe, conventional and boring. So it was quite understandable that when Ratner was hired to direct the third film in the X-Men series, X-Men The Last Stand, longtime fans gnashed their teeth and prayed to whatever mutant god that controls such matters that Ratner not be allowed to screw up their beloved franchise too much. The fans prayers have been answered, for the most part. Though X-Men: The Last Stand has plot holes you could drive a truck through and cringe inducing moments unsuitable to the franchise, Ratner has not screwed the thing up too bad. Actually it's not that bad at all.

X3 turns on the idea that a wealthy industrialist has discovered a cure for the mutant X gene. It's a revelation that rocks the burgeoning mutant community at a time when a tentative peace had come between mutants and humans. The President of the United States (Josef Summer) even has created a dept. of mutant affairs headed up by a mutant, Dr. Hank McCoy aka Beast (Kelsey Grammer). The cure while good for some mutants is a divisive and even deadly issue for others.

Standing against the cure is Magneto (Ian McKellen) who, with his brotherhood of mutants, including Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) and Pyro (Aaron Stanford), plans to use the cure as a rallying cry for mutants to renew the war against humanity. Then there are our heroes the X-Men. Conflicted and confused, most are opposed to the idea that mutants are in need of a cure but against any kind of war with humanity, the X-Men are caught dead set in the middle.

In the midst of the controversy the X-Men face an even bigger crisis. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), thought dead after the last major X-Men conflict, is alive but she is no longer the Jean Grey the team once knew. Her near death experience has released her secondary personality known as the Phoenix, a being of unimaginable and uncontrollable power and rage. With war on the horizon and Jean Grey an even greater danger than that war, X-Men The Last Stand is bursting at the seams with plot. 

Throw in the introductions of several long awaited X-Men characters and you can understand the herculean task that Director Brett Ratner endured in making X-Men The Last Stand. That X3 is as coherent as it is with all of that plot and so many characters is a credit to Ratner. Not that I can let him off the hook completely for the films many flaws but even the biggest Ratner hater out there must cut the guy some slack for the sheer massiveness of X-Men The Last Stand.

Where Ratner succeeds in X3 is in crafting some serious blockbuster action scenes. A fight with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Storm (Halle Berry) facing down Magneto's brotherhood, including Pyro and new members including the super strong Juggernaut (a massively muscled up Vinny Jones) and the empathic speed demon Callisto (Dania Ramirez), is terrific, fast paced action and a terrific lead up to the films most shocking moment.

The ending is the films strongest moment as Wolverine is forced to face off with Jean Grey/Phoenix as she prepares to destroy the entire planet. The scene is exciting and emotional incorporating massive special effects and the entwined histories of these two characters into one powerhouse scene. Predominant amongst the films flaws however, are the younger X-Men, especially Shawn Ashmore as Iceman. The dewey eyed teenage Iceman is an emotional cypher who lacks power and presence. Iceman's main plot function is as the opposing element to Aaron Stanford's Pyro but since Stanford is also an underwhelming presence their time together onscreen is forgettable at best.

The less said about Iceman's romantic triangle subplot with Anna Paquin's Rogue and Elliot Page's Kitty Pride (the girl who can run through walls) the better. I could go on for several more paragraphs picking apart the flaws of X-Men The Last Stand even though I honestly believe that the good outweighs the bad. Brett Ratner's work is not exactly a masters class in direction but it is competent and professional and even thrilling when it really needs to be. The performances of the leads Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry are as good as they have been in the first two films with Jackman's wit becoming more prominent each time out. His work here makes talk of a Wolverine stand alone franchise something to look forward to.

Kelsey Grammer even cuts a surprisingly strong action hero figure as Beast. Fans of the comics have long looked forward to seeing the blue haired monster Dr. Hank McCoy with his unique combination of super strength, agility and erudite intelligence. Embodied by Kelsey Grammer, Beast has the gravitas of Dr. Frasier Crane combined with agility and strength of a classic comic book character. If you can put aside the flaws and concentrate on the terrific performances and often exceptional action scenes and shocking surprises of X-Men The Last Stand you will have a great time. X-Men The Last Stand is big time summer blockbuster entertainment.

Movie Review Inception

Inception (2010) 

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Written by Christopher Nolan 

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine

Release Date July 16th, 2010 

Published July 15th, 2010 

“Inception” is the best movie of the year. Combining a mind melting metaphysical conceit with a wildly entertaining story, “Inception” from director Christopher Nolan is not merely some exercise in high minded, arty filmmaking, it's also a rollercoaster ride of emotion and action like little you have seen since the last time Christopher Nolan blew your mind with “The Dark Knight.”

”Inception” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, a globetrotting con man whose milieu is not seedy bars or corporate boardrooms but rather, the depths of the human psyche. Cobb can enter your mind through your dreams but unlike Freddy Krueger he's not here to kill but to rob you of your deepest, most well protected secrets.

With his team, including Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy, Bronson), Ariadne (Elliot Page) and money man Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), Cobb sneaks into the subconscious of a corporate heir named Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). This job however, is different from the team's usual theft of secrets, this time they are attempting an Inception wherein they planting an idea in Fischer's mind in hopes of influencing his future.

Complicated? It sure sounds complicated but under the skilled direction of Christopher Nolan and the guiding performance of Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception is only rarely mystifying. The story is elaborate and exceptionally well put together and even at 2 hours and 40 minutes it floats by like a dream, one you can't help but remember.

I am being intentionally vague as too much information could spoil the fun. I will tell you that Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard plays Cobb's wife and it's a performance that exceeds even the genius of her Oscar winning role in “La Vie En Rose.” The way Cotillard's character, Mal, is woven into the plot will blow your mind in the most unexpected ways.

”Inception” is exceptionally well directed and intricately plotted and features career best performances from DiCaprio, Cotillard, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Elliot Page. Rounding out this cast are veterans Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite and Tom Berenger, all of whom bring something unique and fascinating to this remarkable, epic dreamy adventure. “Inception” will require further examination and discussion but that can wait for the DVD release. For now, avoid the spoilers and experience “Inception” for yourself. We’ll talk more about it later.

Movie Review: Vox Lux

Vox Lux December 2018

Directed by Brady Corbet 

Written by Brady Corbet 

Starring Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Stacy Martin, Jennifer Ehle, Raffey Cassidy 

Release Date December 18th, 2018

Published December 17th, 2018

Vox Lux is rarely the movie you think it is going to be. The plot indicates something arty and pretentious about the nature of pop stardom but the reality is something far more thoughtful and indelible. Writer-director Brady Corbet frames his pop music diva, played by both Raffey Cassidy and then by Natalie Portman, as the living embodiment of modern American culture. 

I get that that is a big notion but I feel the film pulled off really well. The single named character Celeste is a pretty strong metaphor for our times. Her recent, relatively young history is dotted with a tragic school shooting followed by a rocket ship to fame. She’s drug addled, possibly alcoholic, unstable, a single mother, and perhaps the best endorsement imaginable for mood elevating drugs. If that doesn’t craft a picture of America in the 2000’s, I don’t know what does. 

Celeste is basically a walking reality show with all of the cameras on her all the time and her fame obscuring her sense of any reality. Then there is the violence. In a prologue set in 1999, not so subtly the same year as the Columbine shooting, Celeste was the victim of a school shooter. While most of her classmates were killed, Celeste survived, though with a bullet permanently lodged near her spine. 

Her first act after leaving the hospital is to play a song on national television next to her talented sister, Ellie (Stacy Martin), the living embodiment of survivor’s guilt whose permanently attached herself to her sister’s side. Ellie was supposed to have been at school that day but she was home sick. For the next 20 years Ellie will be constantly at her sister’s side, even as much of that time she becomes her sister’s victim. 

Celeste has quite a temper and an attitude that you are not expecting. Portman lays on a thick Long Island accent and it really works to give the character a unique dimension. As a teenager, the character barely spoke above a whisper and with a halting and singular tone. Portman mirrors the halting tone but the voice is louder, harsher and weathered from years of smoking and a brutal touring schedule. 

No joke, you could discern a life’s journey from the way Natalie Portman modulates her voice and accent in Vox Lux. It’s an uncanny performance and one most actors could not pull off on their best day. Portman is electric in this role and backed up by the music of Sia, she pulls off pop super diva in a big way. I bought into Celeste the moment Portman stepped into the role, in the second act and by the time we reached the film’s concert climax I lost track of the star and was watching pop goddess on stage. 

Is the music good? That depends on your taste but that is entirely beyond the point. The point here is the presentation in all of its gaudy excess. I’ve never understood what exactly pop stars in concert are going for with these bizarre, other-worldly, stage antics but Vox Lux makes a unique case for how they come to be. At a certain point, performing the same songs, the same way, for months and years becomes stale and slapping on a new coat of paint with bizarre costumes and choreography is the only way to beat the tedium. 

The film doesn’t make the statement quite as bluntly as I just did but the message is clear. Even with the updated on stage presentation the stiffness of the performance comes through as if Celeste were performing by rote, mimicking in a way our own performance, our daily routines that we’ve got down to a predictable science. There is a deathlessness to the performance that comes through in Portman’s eyes, this has become so second nature for her that she could do it in her sleep and yet they still cheer. 

That’s not to indicate that the film has any opinions of Celeste or the kinds of people who flock to her brand of brainless entertainment. The film makes a strong case for why anyone would want to turn their brain off and just be entertained by the shiny lights and propulsive beats. The faux empowerment lyrics and empty love songs are a panacea for the audience and the performer who’d also like to just forget the world for a while. 

Vox Lux is a giant bullseye of a metaphor for our modern culture. Unstable, violent, unpredictable, obsessed with fame and money, gaudy and eccentric. The movie is a rather ingenious microcosm of our current state of affairs. That Vox Lux is not some kind of bloated, monstrous, obsessed with itself, mess of a movie is quite a testament to the talent of star Natalie Portman and  writer-director Brady Corbet who’s made one heck of a great feature directorial debut. 

Movie Review Smart People

Smart People (2008) 

Directed by Noam Murro 

Written by Mark Poirer 

Starring Dennis Quaid, Elliot Page, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church

Release Date April 11th, 2008 

Published April 10th, 2008

A terrific cast attempts to cover the flaws of an irritatingly self satisfied screenplay and amateur direction in Smart People. Working against type Dennis Quaid impresses but is left adrift while Oscar nominees Elliot Page and Thomas Haden Haden Church try too hard to leave behind their defining performances behind. Then there is Sarah Jessica Parker who essays the only interesting character in this movie but is undone by the movie itself when, late in the film, things go completely off the rails.

Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a brilliant but socially inept literature professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His wife died a while back and he has yet to even try to move on, every item of her clothing remains upstairs in a second bedroom that was her closet. Lawrence's daughter Vanessa (Elliot Page) has taken on most of the wifely tasks, cooking, cleaning and such, even seeming to raise herself in her father's pompous, intellectual image. While Lawrence awaits word from publishers on his latest intellectual screed on an obscure literary legend, Vanessa is waiting for word from Stanford and studying far too diligently for a perfect SAT score.

Their version of domestic bliss is upended when jerk Lawrence tries to retrieve his car from an impound lot and ends up falling after climbing over a fence. The fall causes a seizure and that means he can no longer drive. When Vanessa refuses to be his chauffeur she allows Lawrence's adopted brother Chuck to move in in exchange for becoming his driver. The situation is entirely unsuitable for Lawrence who has long ago tired of his brothers constant mooching and get rich quick scheming. Meanwhile, in the hospital Lawrence meets Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), a doctor and former student of his whom he graded poorly but now he is desperate to somehow impress.

These four Smart People begin a series of collisions and disruptions of each other's lives that seem as if they should be entertaining. Instead, Smart People is a movie that just sort of happens and then it's over. It seems as if it should be funnier than it is. The talented cast makes you believe it is more charming than it really is. Director Noam Murro's competent direction contributes to the idea of Smart People as a smart movie. Further post film reflection however brings about the revelation that there really isn't much too Smart People at all.

Mark Jude Poirier wrote the script for Smart People but his real contribution to the film is a quote in the New York Times in which he marvels at the fact that Smart People is a movie where not much really happens. A film about nothing? Seinfeld this is not. Smart People is actually about something but figuring what that is would require us to spend more time with these rather boring, self absorbed characters. Lawrence's defining trait is pomposity and Dennis Quaid eats a good deal of screen time demonstrating that quality. Thomas Haden Church gets to be the funky, pot smoking uncle but it makes him no less self absorbed.

Elliot Page takes on the role of Vanessa as if it were a repudiation of her Juno character. Don't worry, the smartassy sing-song sarcasm is still in place but it comes with a character who is an overachieving young republican with no friends and a seriously odd obsession for the clothing of a casual Laura Bush. As for Parker, she doesn't come off as terribly self absorbed except when she is the victim of some seriously poor editing and directorial decisions late in the film. It seems that several important scenes that might explain some of her character's bizarre actions late in the film were cut for one reason or another. This leaves the character of Janet looking shrewish and off putting because her actions are almost entirely without motive.

Movie Review: Whip It

Whip It (2009) 

Directed by Drew Barrymore 

Written by Shauna Cross

Starring Elliot Page, Kristen Wiig, Marcia Gay Harden, Drew Barrymore, Juliette Lewis 

Release Date October 9th, 2009 

Published October 8th, 2009 

As a kid I watched Roller Derby on Saturday nights. I never quite understood how the game was played but I loved the violence, the speed and the quirky humor. But the one thing that really stood out for me were the women. It was a mixed league where guys did a round then the ladies. I remember these women, some were giants and some were tiny and quick. It fostered in me a love of tough chicks. Whip It is a movie about the women I admired on Saturday nights. The bruisers and the speedsters. Beyond their toughness, director Drew Barrymore finds heart, humor and love while never losing that violent, attractive toughness that some call Grrl Power. Whateve they call it, I love it.

Elliot Page is the star of Whip It as Bliss Cavender. Trapped in a tiny Texas town where her overbearing mother (Marcia Gay Harden) forces her to compete in teen pageants, Bliss longs for something more. What that something more is, Bliss doesn't know yet. It finally becomes clear to her when, on a shopping trip to Austin, she spies girls on roller skates handing out flyers for Roller Derby.

Enlisting the help of her best friend Pash (Elia Shawkat), Bliss attends the match and it's love at first sight. When she hears about tryouts for her new favorite team, the Hurl Scouts, she pulls out her Barbie roller skates and hops aboard a senior shuttle to Austin and begins a secret life under her new name "Babe Ruthless".

All the roller girls have nicknames. There is Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell) and Rosa Sparks (Eve) on the Hurl Scouts. On the other teams there is Eva Destruction (Ari Graynor) and the leagues top roller Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). The names are part of the fun and bonding that give the film it's quirky heart.

Naturally, there is also romance in Bliss's new life as she meets and falls for a boy, a rocker played by newcomer Landon Pigg. While the romance blossoms and Bliss becomes a star there is inevitably trouble on the horizon. A requirement of this plot is her parents finding out and Bliss being separated from all that she loves. How Director Barrymore plays these scenes I will let you see for your self. I will say that while she cannot escape convention, Barrymore shows more skill with the expected scenes than a lot of mainstream directors who grow lazy in the face of convention.

The cast of Whip It is pitch perfect. Lead by the star turn of Elliot Page, leaving Juno behind growing into a movie. Alia Shawkat is a terrific comic foil with whom Page has great chemistry. The scene stealer however, is Kristen Wiig as Maggie, the heart of her team and just the right person to guide Bliss. Ms. Barrymore gives herself a remarkable role as well, one that requires her to put aside any and all star ego and just give in to pure excess. It's a very funny performance. Juliette Lewis makes a good villain, vulnerable but with the strength to kick the ass of anyone who takes notice of that vulnerability.

Marcia Gay Harden has not been this good since her Oscar winning role in Pollack. Her role is conventionally villainous but she short circuits that with humor and a painful longing that makes her sympathetic even as she is standing in the way of all of the fun. Paired with Daniel Stern as Bliss's sports addicted father, Harden is the perfect combination or harridan and heart.

Whip It is too predictable to go from a good movie to a great one but for what it is, it's a terrifically realized comedy with heart and humor and best of all characters we quickly come to love and care about. My memories of Saturday Night Roller Derby on cable are fuzzy now but I hope that behind the scenes things are something resembling this movie. I still love tough chicks.

Movie Review: V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta (2006) 

Directed by James McTiegue 

Written by The Wachowski's 

Starring Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt 

Release Date March 17th, 2006 

Published March 16th, 2006 

The most controversial movie of 2006 has arrived. V For Vendetta, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, has been accused of subversion and supporting a terrorist agenda. The question then must be: Does V For Vendetta put forth a terrorist agenda? The answer, because this is such a wonderfully smart and complex film, is yes and no.

Yes, the character of V, portrayed by Hugo Weaving, uses terrorist tactics and his goals are most definitely subversive. However, in this dystopian vision of the future, V's reign of terror is aimed at a totalitarian government that can only be fought with guerrilla or terrorist tactics. Those who can think with both sides of their brain will understand this complex division of ideas. For the myopic and agenda driven however V For Vendetta is a threatening shot across the bow.

In the year 2020, England has fallen under the sway of a militaristic dictator named Adam Sutler (John Hurt). Exploiting a tragedy that killed hundreds of thousands in the early years of the 21st century, Sutler was able to impose his dictatorship by playing on the fears of society, especially fears of the kind of chaos that had thrown the U.S, in this vision of the future, into a wildly violent civil war.

The new English dictator censors all art forms and removed or edited British history to match the new dictator's worldview. However, one thing he cannot censor is a bizarre masked character calling himself V (Hugo Weaving). Hiding behind the grinning porcelain veneer of the 17th century English terrorist Guy Fawkes, V strolls the darkened streets of London righting injustice and launching masterpieces of violent uprising.

In the early hours of the 5th of November, the date that, in 1606, Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up parliament in what was called the gunpowder treason, V has hatched an elaborate plan to wake up the citizens of London to the tyranny of their government. But first V intercedes when he finds three of London's secret police, known as Fingermen, attacking a young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman). Saving Evey's life, V invites her to witness his symphony of violence that includes major fireworks and the destruction of the British landmark the Old Bailey courthouse.

Later, V tells a captive nationwide audience, in a pirate broadcast, that one year from that date, he will blow up parliament and invites everyone with an issue with the government's fear tactics to join him. In the meantime V will be exacting revenge on the men who turned him into a masked vigilante. A series of murders, all connected to the tragedies that lead to Adam Sutler winning power. Stephen Rea plays the head of the British police charged with finding V who, in the process, ends up uncovering more than he wants to know about his government.

Evey and V have a past that is linked in ways neither is fully aware of. Her parents and younger brother were victims of the plague that gave rise to the current government as was V. Evey (as played by the lovely Ms. Portman) gives the film its conscience and story arc. Her slow awakening to radicalism, and what some would call terrorism, is where the film finds its socio-political backbone. At first she questions V's tactics and motives, giving us in the audience a chance to do so as well. Once she comes around we likely already have but it makes for a few of the films big dramatic moments.

The cast of V For Vendetta is sprawling and spectacular from top to bottom. John Hurt perfectly embodies the vengeful power-hungry chancellor. His presence also offers the ironic humor of his having played protagonist Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984, now graduated to playing Big Brother. Stephen Fry appears, all too briefly, as a talk show host, Evey's closest friend, and a man with a deep secret that provides yet another deep and abiding principle that the writers Andy and Larry Wachowski wish to exploit.

Many nods to the British stage also mark this cast, from Timothy Pigott Smith as the Chancellor's hatchet man, to Rupert Graves as Rea's detective partner, to Roger Allam as an unctuous TV commentator who evinces more than a little Rush Limbaugh in his bombastic oratory.

Written by Andy and Larry Wachowski, V For Vendetta has the excitement of the Matrix films but with a bigger brain. Directed by Matrix second unit director James McTeigue in his feature debut, V For Vendetta is also as visually accomplished as The Matrix pictures--high praise for a first time director. I don't mean to imply that V For Vendetta is superior to The Matrix, though it is superior to the lackadaisical sequels.

What separates V For Vendetta is the ideas behind it. There are a myriad of interpretations of exactly what the Wachowskis were attempting to say with this picture. When V For Vendetta debuted as a graphic novel from Alan Moore, it was an allegory for the Margaret Thatcher administration in England in the '80s. Updated to our times some see this version of V For Vendetta as veiled attacks on either George W. Bush, Tony Blair, or both. If you want to follow that line you can, but V For Vendetta is not that simple to pin down.

Yes there are references to America's war leading to the chaos of this future society. Director James McTeigue also makes an obvious visual reference to the Abu Graib prisons in Iraq. But the film is more accurately an attack on a government out of control and the way absolute power corrupts absolutely. The films ideology could be compared with the logic offered by the National Rifle Association in America which posits that the people have the right to bear arms so that if the government ever became a threat the people could fight back.

V For Vendetta takes that theory to a particular conclusion as the people of Britain, lead by V, begin to fight back against the tyrannical leadership. Yes, V's tactics and ideas could be defined as terrorism. When V talks of how blowing up a building can be a revolutionary act you cannot help but make the queasy connection to 9/11. That however is not necessarily the context of V For Vendetta.

Taken specifically within the guidelines of the plot this line of logic from V is merely the only way for the people to fight back against a government run amok. Think of it in terms of North Koreans rising to blow up symbols of dictator Kim Jong Il, or the people of Iraq attacking Saddam's palaces and you have a better corollary to the mindset of V For Vendetta.

V For Vendetta is bathed in coolness from beginning to end. The reflected glory of rebellious writer Alan Moore should inspire fanboys despite Moore's disassociating himself from the film after reading the script. Then there are the Wachowskis, whose cache of cool remains intact despite the mixed results of the Matrix sequels and the brothers' personal stories which have made for some interesting tabloid fodder.

The film's outlaw spirit and exceptionally well-staged violence are the big draws and they do not disappoint. V For Vendetta is exciting, thought provoking and darkly humorous. The film encompasses the ideas of revolutionary politics and righteous martial arts violence in ways we have never seen before on film and that makes it at once relevant anti-establishment filmmaking and kickass blockbuster action movie.

If watching a movie can be a revolutionary act, then V For Vendetta could inspire generations. Not inspire them to blow up buildings, but rather to watch closer for the signposts of corruption and fear mongering, which many fear are already being seen throughout the free world. V For Vendetta is powerful filmmaking with the punch of social commentary wrapped in the popcorn goodness of the mainstream blockbuster. This is one of the best films you will see in 2006.